


September

by autisticaizawashouta



Series: Gender is Hard 'verse [20]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Disabled Character, Gen, More Than Just Teenage Angst, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Queer Youth, Rebellion, These kids are changing the world, complicated families, no one is straight, while navigating all the drama i'm putting them through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autisticaizawashouta/pseuds/autisticaizawashouta
Summary: Things are moving forward, and a new student moves to Roman and Logan's school.(Or, No One In This Room Is Straight And That Is How I Like It)(Happy Birthday, M! Congratulations, you're getting old!)





	September

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilovemygaydad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovemygaydad/gifts).



> Specific minor warnings: mentions of mental health issues, bigotry, gun violence, food, violence, and abuse. They're only mentioned or alluded to; nothing graphic.  
> This is the GIHV, pronouns are as follows: Logan, xe/xir; Roman, they/them; Virgil, they/them; September, she/her

“And the website is live!” Roman proclaimed, throwing their hands in the air. The gathering of teenagers cheered with them.

“It looks so good,” Renee said, scrolling on her phone. “Like, wow. Tell V that they have a gift.”

“Will do,” Logan replied. Xe was sitting on the couch in Mr. O’Mara’s house. Elliott had volunteered their and Reilly’s home as a headquarters, of sort, for the as-of-now dubbed GenReb. The teenagers were in the living room, sitting on couches, chairs, and the carpet. Hollyn was sitting on the floor with her back against the couch, right next to Logan’s legs. One of the O’Mara-Stokes household’s cats was on her lap, kneading holes in her knees and purring up a storm.

It had taken a few more days than originally planned for Virgil to finish the website. They had cited personal issues as the reason for why it had taken so long, apologized, and promised to tell Logan and Roman about it when they felt more ready to.

Logan, if xe was being honest, was a little irritated it had taken longer than they had said it would to get the website done but things happened. Xe knew things happened. Xe just had to let it go.

Mr. “outside of school you can just call me Daniel” O’Mara had been very patient with all the teenagers. There were eight extra teenagers in his house, eating pizza and making Vine references and being loud. Artemisia was off teaching an art class, and Kade and Ethan- the two youngest O’Mara kids- were playing upstairs.

When xe got tired of conversation, xe could spend time looking at the art on the walls. Several of Artemisia’s pieces were hung up, including one of Multnomah Falls and one of Mt. McLoughlin at sunrise. There was also a bookshelf there. Logan had noticed, the first time xe looked at it, that there were hard copies of several of Virgil’s books there. Xe and Roman had agreed, over text, that they weren’t going to mention that they knew the author quite well.

“Alright, so,” Christine said from her spot on the floor by the coffee table. “Website’s up, petition’s on the Discord for consensus on it, let’s party!”

Elliott smiled. “Not too much, though. There is an eleven-year-old in the house.”

“Well, we’re not all adults yet,” Christine replied, shrugging. “So we couldn’t do too much anyway. Hey, do you have Apples to Apples? Kade and Ethan could play with us, too, and if your dad wanted to.”

Reilly jumped to his feet. “Yeah! I’ll go let them know! Come on, Elliott!” Elliott smiled and followed Reilly out of the room. The two of them returned a few minutes later, followed by Ethan, Kade, and Daniel.

“Ah, Apples to Apples with a whole pack of teenagers,” he said, stealing Reilly’s spot in one of the chairs. “This will be absolute chaos.”

“Hey!” Reilly protested. “That was my spot!”

Father and son teased each other, and Logan listened. It was interesting to xir, how some words of Reilly’s had the Irish accent and some of them had the American accent. He had grown up with a father who still had a fairly thick accent.

Eventually, all players had seven cards and Zia pulled a green card to start them off.

The game went on for longer than it would if they followed the x-many-green-cards-wins rule. No one followed that rule. That’s how Renee won with seventeen green cards.

(The second-place winner was Roman, who only had twelve.)

“Teach me your ways!” Vance begged, leaning towards Renee. She shrugged.

“Luck and good humor,” she replied.

“That’s honestly always the best way to go,” Daniel agreed, standing up. “How many of you are staying the night?”

Roman and Logan raised their hands, along with Hollyn and Renee.

“Alright. Ethan, Kade, would you help me grab blankets and pillows for them?”

“I brought my own,” Roman said, and Logan nodded in agreement. Xe had, too.

Daniel nodded. “Alright, thank you.” He left the room, followed by his two younger kids.

“Well,” Christine said, standing up and stretching her arms over her head. “It’s been real. Think we could do this again sometime?”

“We could have it at Logan’s house next!” Roman voluntold xir. “Xir parents are great.”

Zia shrugged. “If xir parents are okay with it, I’d like to.” Various noises of agreement were made, and so it was that Logan’s house would be the next to fall victim to a GenReb meeting.

The teenagers not staying the night left. Katy, Zia, and Vance were catching a ride with Christine, which left Roman, Logan, Renee, and Hollyn with Reilly and Elliott.

“I have homework to do,” Elliott said, standing up. “The five of you don’t stay up too late.”

“We don’t plan on sleeping at all,” Reilly replied, and Elliott sighed.

“Well,” they said, “I guess. Let me know if you want to go get coffee or something if you’re really planning on not sleeping.” They left the room, taking their coat with them.

The five teenagers gathered some snacks and created a blanket and pillow next in the living room. Reilly put the first Harry Potter movie in, and the five of them settled in.

Logan opened Discord on xir phone and pulled up the group channel shared by the four of them.

**_Glasses Gay Young:_ ** _Are either of you awake?_

**_Theatre Gay:_ ** _I am awake!_

**_Glasses Gay Young:_ ** _I know you are. I was asking Virgil and Patton._

**_Panic! at the Everywhere:_ ** _i am conscious_

**_Glasses Gay Young:_ ** _I know you said you would tell us what delayed you when you were more ready, but I am curious. It is unlike you to miss a deadline._

**_Panic! at the Everywhere:_ ** _not true. i am very bad at meeting deadlines._

**_Glasses Gay Young:_ ** _Untrue. You regularly meet the deadlines you set for yourself when it comes to updating, posting, and publishing. Even when you almost died you still somehow got your post up for that week._

**_Theatre Gay:_ ** _I am kind of worried about you._

**_Panic! at the Everywhere:_ ** _oh. uh. well. i appreciate that._

_i missed the deadline because i have, well, some mental health issues. they acted up this past week._

**_Glasses Gay Young:_ ** _Oh. Well, that’s understandable. I hope you’re feeling better._

**_Panic! at the Everywhere:_ ** _thanks._

Logan locked xir phone for a moment. Xe had known, logically, that Virgil had some mental health issues. It was only to be expected, after experiencing trauma. Xe didn’t even know the full extent of the sort of trauma they had faced in their life, but just surviving an abusive relationship was enough to mess someone up.

About twenty minutes into the first movie, Artemisia returned home. She wheeled into the house and into the living room to check on the five of them.

“How was your class?” Reilly asked.

“It went well,” Artemisia replied, smiling at him. “I’m looking forward to the end-of-term show. We’re going to have some truly stunning pieces.”

“I can’t wait to go,” Reilly said.

Artemisia nodded. “Well. Try and get some sleep tonight. Good night and sleep well.”

“Love you, mom,” Reilly said. He stood up and walked over to hug her, and she hugged him back.

“Love you too,” she replied. “Now get some sleep!” She left the room, and they could hear her talking to Daniel in the kitchen.

Eventually they fell asleep, the second Harry Potter movie playing in the background. They woke up to Daniel, Ethan, Kade, and Elliott getting ready for school.

“About time you sleepyheads woke up!” Kade said, bouncing into the room. “Dad said we had to be quiet until you woke up.”

“You did very well,” Reilly said, sitting up and stretching. He yawned and shook his hair into his face. Logan checked xir phone. The five of them had plenty of time to get ready for school. They couldn’t all shower, but oh well.

Logan drove Roman, Renee, Reilly, and Hollyn to school. It was later than xe normally arrived, but that was alright. Roman was alternating between texting Calisto and singing along to the radio the entire way, and the other four filled the space when they were texting with conversation.

Xe was once again struck by how nice yet odd it was, to have friends.

 

The tension in the school was wild. You had part of the school on one side, part of it on the other, and a solid chunk of students were supposedly not picking sides.

Xe could hear the whispers in the hallway, xe could feel their gazes on xir. Given xir reputation, and then coming out as non-binary, xe had always turned heads. But not like this. This felt different.

It was xir first-period class. There was a student transferring into the school, having moved from Connecticut.

“This is September Ellis. He’s moved—”

“She,” September said. Her smile was sharp enough to draw blood.

 

For some reason, September was assigned the seat next to Logan. Maybe the teacher thought that she’d be a calming influence. Of course, the more likely reason was that the seat next to xir was the only seat left open.

“So,” she said, setting down her backpack and sitting down. “You’re Logan.”

“It would appear so,” xe replied.

September smiled again, small and sweet, but the look in her eyes promised viciousness. “I do hope we won’t have any problems.”

“Are you an anti-vaxxer, a bigot, or a Republican?” Logan asked, and she shook her head.

“Obviously not,” she replied.

“Then I don’t think we’ll have many problems,” xe said. “By the way, my pronouns are xe/xir.”

September blinked. “Oh. Okay then. She/her, but you might’ve already gotten that.”

“It may or may not have been glaringly obvious from the way you smacked Mrs. Joyner down like that,” xe replied, xir tone dry.

“Yeah, well, I don’t let people get away with misgendering me,” she said, shrugging.

“Logan, September, focus up and stop talking,” Mrs. Joyner said. “Class has started.”

 

September sought xir out during lunch.

“So is this just the gay and trans table?” she asked, carrying her tray over and setting it down across the table from Logan. Roman looked over at her.

“Pretty much,” they said, nodding. “I’m Roman Prince, they/them. You are?”

“September Ellis, she/her,” she replied, sticking out her hand. Roman accepted her handshake.

“Pleasure to meet you,” they said. “Did you just move here?”

“Yeah, from Connecticut,” she replied.

“Why’d you move here, of all places?” Hollyn asked, leaning into the conversation. “I’m Hollyn, by the way, she/her.”

“September,” September replied. “And my mom’s sister needs some support and refused to move out to Connecticut, so of course mom had to up and drag me and my sister across the country.”

Hollyn cringed. “Oh, that’s rough.”

September shrugged. “It is what it is. At least I get to see most of my cousins more regularly than once every three or four years.”

“That’s good,” Roman agreed.

“Most of my family lives on the West Coast, at least the ones I’m close to. It would be hard to not live near them,” Logan said, and September nodded.

“Yeah. And all my friends are back in Connecticut, so I’m kinda screwed whether I’m here or there I guess.”

“Hey!” Roman gasped. “I’m your friend!”

“You literally just met me,” she pointed out.

Roman shook their head. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be your friends.”

She looked like she was contemplating that thought for a few moments. “Okay then. Well. Can you tell me what the hell is up with all the tension in this school?”

Roman took a deep breath, and Matt reached over and covered their mouth with his hand.

“No singing in the cafeteria anymore. They’d give you detention, remember?”

Roman whined, and Matt removed his hand.

“Ugh, fine, we’ll explain the boring way. Anyways, there’s quite a few of us who are sick of the status quo in schools. Bigotry, abuse, violence, the ever-growing threat of being shot, horrible food, worsening mental health… I think everyone at this table is involved, but anyways, there’s _some_ students who think the system’s good the way it is and they kind of hate us anyways because they’re bigots,” they said.

“Oooooh,” September’s eyes seemed to shine.

“We have a website, genreb.com, that you can check out,” Logan added. September pulled her phone out.

“I am totally in,” she said.

“Oh, well, do you have a Discord account?” Hollyn asked, and September nodded. “Could you put your contact information in and I’ll send you a link to the GenReb server?”

September added her information to Hollyn’s phone, and Hollyn sent her a text with the link.

_Welcome, **@earthwindandfire**. Leave your weapons by the door._

September grinned to herself. Maybe Oregon wouldn’t be so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!  
> If you enjoyed it, leave a kudos! And if you want, leave a comment! I love hearing from you. I also want to know if I'm being way too obvious with what I'm building up, so let me know what you think might happen! (everything is important. all loose ends will someday be tied)  
> With love,  
> Kestrel Daniel  
> (they/them)  
> ps: this has an ask blog, @gender-is-hard-asks, or you can bug me on my main tumblr, @bird-based-anarchy  
> pps: the story previous to this one, Sleep, is the one that broke 40k on this series


End file.
